After the video was released of Shedeur Sanders receiving a prank call on Friday night before the New Orleans Saints made Louisville’s Tyler Shough the third quarterback selected in the 2025 NFL Draft, the NFL, through an investigation, and social media sleuths were quick to search for the culprit. It appeared that it had to be someone connected to the NFL who had access to the number of the private phone Sanders was using, and sure enough, it was.
On Sunday, a day after Sanders became a fifth-round pick of the Cleveland Browns, the Atlanta Falcons issued a statement outing defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich’s 21-year-old son Jax as the culprit, and Jax followed with a public apology, one that Sanders probably never expected to receive.
Statement on IG from Jax Ulbrich, son of the Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, about the draft weekend prank call to Shedeur Sanders: pic.twitter.com/qPITk6gItD
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 27, 2025
Son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator outed as prank caller
The entire saga was more of an embarrassment to Ulbrich and the Falcons than it was to Sanders, who emerges from the trying week as a bit of a sympathetic figure after tumbling down draft boards and being targeted in this shameful prank. The NFL should contemplate repercussions for the elder Ulbrich for allowing sensitive information to be accessed by a non-league employee, but it is unlikely that the league or the Falcons will discipline a coach for the actions of his son.
Ironically, some felt that the NFL, by staying away from Shedeur Sanders until the Cleveland Browns finally broke down and selected him in the fifth round, was punishing the son for the actions of his father.
Deion Sanders is no LaVar Ball, the over-the-top father of Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball, who rose to prominence as his sons emerged as top NBA prospects. He is an NFL Hall of Famer and a rather successful coach of a Power Four college football program, but where NBA organizations put aside their apprehensions about working with the Ball family and selected both Lonzo and LaMelo with top-three draft picks, the NFL allowed Shedeur to become the sixth quarterback drafted in the underwhelming 2025 class.
Like LaVar Ball, Coach Prime has been outspoken in his support of both his sons, Shedeur and Shilo, whom he coached at Colorado for the past two seasons, but unlike LaVar, he has the football acumen to back it up. Still, it appeared blatantly obvious that teams were not interested in inviting the media circus that Coach Prime has created around his talented offspring to their town.
Still, Shedeur has a chance to earn a roster spot in Cleveland, and potentially even the starting job, so while he nor any one of his family members has any way to make Jax Ulbrich pay for his tasteless prank, he can make the rest of the NFL pay for repeatedly passing on him.
Shedeur dismissed any talk about the prank-call saga during his first interaction with the Cleveland-area media, and that shouldn’t change after Ulbrich’s public apology. The quicker that Shedeur and the rest of his camp can put this entire disastrous draft weekend behind them, the better that will be for his suddenly flailing NFL career.